Food travel: Ricey matters in South Indian Cuisine

What strikes me about South Indian cuisine each time I visit that part of India is how creative it is with a humble cup of rice! They steam, ferment, grind, slow-cook, roll, simmer, sauté to produce a plethora of interesting and very tasty dishes. Here's a few I got messy with on my trip back home earlier this month...a LOT of Tamil and Kannadiga food was eaten...

Cooking techniques involved: Soak in water with urad dal, grind to make a paste, ferment overnight, steam

To accompany: coconut chutney and sambhar (spicy lentil soup)

Idlis

Dosa

Cooking techniques involved: Soak in water with urad dal, grind to make a paste, ferment for a day, cook on a frying pan, like you would a pancake

To accompany: curries, sambhar and chutneys of different types (coconut, tomato, groundnut, coriander are a few popular ones)

Breakfast at Chikmagalur, Karnataka

Akki roti

Cooking techniques involved: Grind to rice flour, make into dough with hot water, roll out into pancakes (rice flour dough is crumbly and difficult to roll out. It's often patted onto the pan instead, to form a pancake), cook

Cooking techniques involved: Grind to rice flour, slow-cook with water to make a dough, roll into tiny balls, boil in a coconut milk, jaggery and moong dal mixture, season with cardamom, and drizzle with ghee

To accompany: eat this delicious dessert on its own. Recipe coming up soon...